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The Implementation of the Wiki as a learning tool:
There are many well supported examples and suggestions of how the wiki can be used as a beneficial educational tool. However, there are also a number of issues that have to be addressed or at least considered when implementing wikis as an educational tool on a classroom level. At a very basic level, the collaboration element that the wiki offers has been shown to be highly advantageous in nature due to the work of Lev VygotskyGillen, J. (2012). Versions of Vygotsky. British Journal of Educational Studies, 48(2), 183-198. and the Constructivist educational paradigmDarling-Hammond, L. (2006). CONSTRUCTING 21st-CENTURY TEACHER EDUCATION. Journal of Teacher Education,, 57(3), 300-314.. It exemplifies “Writing to learn” in a highly relatable medium. To reach this potential it requires a commitment of time and effort on the part of both the teacher and the students as all parties must possess the basic technical skills required to successfully use the wiki and also the energy that must be expended to update it for the students, and the requirement to check on the progress of the students and provide any necessary assistance.Sandars, J., & Schroter, S. (2007). Web 2.0 technologies for undergraduate and postgraduate medical education: an online survey. Postgraduate Medical Journal '', 83:759–762. Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0 A New Wave of Inovation for Teachign and Learning? ''EDUCAUSE Review, 33-44. Time is also required to gain experience in a new medium as students gain mastery and move from producing wiki entries that are superficial and shallow to those that are in depth in the same way that they develop their essay writing or report writing skills.Duffy, P., & Bruns, A. (2006). The Use of Blogs, Wikis and RSS in Education: A Conversation of Possibilities. Proceedings Online Learning and Teaching Conference '', (pp. 31-38). Brisbane. To this end, a successful implementation of a wiki in the classroom needs to start slowly and ideally will combine multiple disciplines and strands. It is necessary to teach students the basic mechanical skills of adding pages, modifying entries and linking pages.Jaksch, B., Kepp, J. S., & Womser-Hacker, C. (2008). Integration of a Wiki for Collaborative Knowledge Development in an E-Learning Context for University Teaching . ''USAB, 77–96. Notari, M. (2006). How to Use a Wiki in Education: ‘Wiki based Effective Constructive Learning’ . WikiSym’06 (pp. 131-132). Odense, Denmark: ACM. Teaching these mechanical skills would need to be tied into the ICT curriculum due to the time sink that would take away time from dicipline specific content. Once the basic mechanical skills are in place, it would be necessary to ensure that students were in the right mind frame. They need to be open to the idea of group work, collaboration and the higher order thinking skills that are required to produce entries of the desired depth.Parker, K. R., & Chao, J. T. (2007). Wiki as a Teaching Tool. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects, 3: 57-73. The teacher can assist this growth by comparing conventional assessments to the required abilities in the wiki creation. Finally, time is important. The whole educational community, teacher and students alike need to have time to adjust to this new type of education and slowly realize the potential.Redecker, C., Ala-Mutka, K., Bacigalupo, M., Ferrari, A., & Punie, Y. (2009). Learning 2.0: The Impact of Web 2.0 Innovations on Education and Training in Europe. Seville (Spain): European Comission Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. A small start, sufficient guidance and a measure of patience are all required in the execution of the wiki as an educational classroom tool.